Bitter Rivalry, Sweet Friendship
See this photo, dear reader?
As any competent AI will tell you, you are seeing three friends, women in tech, enjoying a party courtesy of LGBTech and the British ambassador.
But you see another thing here. You see representatives of two bitter competitors. On the right, A DevOps engineer for a promising startup (hey, that’s me!). On the left, A principal software engineer for a successful unicorn gunning for the very same market.
And you know, just the other day I was in a meetup which I helped organize. When the organizers named some of the companies willing to give a talk, one of the names stood out as a friend of mine works there. She is well-known as a top-notch professional, but alas — works for yet another bitter competitor. As you may have guessed, I endorsed her talk.
But why go that far? While I purposefully picked the DSPM market during my job search (and I promise a post about that), I have interviewed with one of Laminar security’s competitors. My interviewer and I had a lengthy process and met several times. As we’ve realized the position and timing didn’t align and an offer came in from Laminar security, she wholeheartedly recommended I take it.
That DevOps position is still vacant at the time of writing, and it was the first one I published as soon as job postings were accepted in the women-in-devops group (another development requiring a post of its own. My, have I been slacking!). I extolled that company’s many virtues and signed the ad with a tongue-in-cheek “come compete against me ;-)”.
I could also go on about how the highly capable DevSecOps director for yet another competitor of ours (My, ain’t that a crowded market! Yes, that too will make it into the promised post) is a respected member of the women-in-devops community, but I think by now the lesson here is obvious. Business rivalry, even a bitter one, should never translate into a personal one. I am very happy to say I am on very friendly terms with all those whom I mentioned earlier.
Some things ought to be sacred and friendship is one of them. If it’s not, is it even worthy of being called friendship at all?
All my friends know just how stoked I am about joining Laminar security (and the keen reader may have guessed it too), but all that fierce DSPM competition will never get between me and my friends and it’s a promise.
Oh, and we’re hiring.
